Comments

I am very proud of the 999 silver interconnects I made, Its a very simple design. Pure solid silver wire in a teflon tube. Cut it to size and solder on a mid priced RCA. I didn't have any true high end interconnects to compare it to but the improvement from my mid priced interconnect was noticed immediately first time I tried them. I also made a matching pair with mil spec silver coated hookup wire with teflon insulation. They also sounded good but I have mostly been using the pure silver ones.

I used this site as a guide. The only problem I had is I couldnt figure out how to secure the teflon tubes securely in the RCA body (they are slippery!). You don't want to pull these cables out by the wires. The pair I made look similar to these.

I like the Douglas Connection "kits" I ordered from Doug. So far I've only managed to get one set made, but I think they sound pretty good.

I used the Furez FZ162AA Analog IC. I'd probably look at some Mogami shielded stuff as well.
I like locking RCA connectors. Doug has a bunch of different ones.
I used the DC Locking RCA; $12.50/pr. These are affordable and work well enough, but I prefer the locking functionality of other connectors a smidge better. These ones don't get quite as tight as I'd like, but there's a little trick to help that a bit.
(Just picked up some Furez R10BCS Silver Plated Copper Core to use to refresh the connectors on my Technics SL-1200); $35/pr
Also picked up some time ago some Parts Express Locking RCA Connectors; $20/2pr. These are similar to the Vampire Wire ones, though I've not handled the VW's personally.

I once tried to bulk order some GLS Audio Locking RCAs, which look similar to the Parts Express ones, but the connector is thin and cheap, so back those went. With this style of locking connector, I was trying to find something similar to the ones MIT uses, but couldn't really find them. Most will be gold plated brass core, but I think Ideally I'd want gold plated copper core. WBT makes some, but spendy. Watch out for fakes on Ebay.

Re: shielding, for me, as I was "taught", I go with the shielding terminated along with the ground to the body of the source side connector only, and trim and tuck the braid on the destination end. I was reading that some companies don't use shielding, and instead rely on conductor geometry for interference rejection? Dynamique is a company that does this, iirc?

Here's a link to my ugly first build with embarrassing solder work. Yeesh. Haven't done any serious critical listening with these. Was mostly just for the project fun with some nice quality materials.

I don't believe the characteristic impedance will make any difference except for digital device connections. It is the cable's geometry that caught my attention, the center conductor is held in the middle of a flexible plastic tube by a spiraling plastic form. The air between the conductor and the centering tube is the dielectric material (air has a good reputation for sound quality when used as a dielectric). This cable is used in scientific and test equipment when low capacitance is needed. Also early computer network connections.
You have to use a little care to maintain the shape of the cable when attaching the RCA's ground return so as not to change the relationship between the conductor and the supporting structure. Of course any coaxial cable needs this care when attaching any kind of connector.

"They thought we were too loud, but shoot, I had four army blankets folded over my amp, and the volume level was on 2. I'm used to playin' on 10!" S.R.V.

RG62A/U coax is the only wire I know of that used a copper coated STEEL conductor. Most "experts" say you need to use the purest copper or silver availible and to avoid all ferrous material like the plague .

RG62A/U coax is the only wire I know of that used a copper coated STEEL conductor. Most "experts" say you need to use the purest copper or silver availible and to avoid all ferrous material like the plague .

Many (most) coax is now copper coated steel. This that Ken used was 100% copper. I believe his was an much older stock because when i tried to find some to buy i ran up against the fact i could no longer find 100% copper. Canare and a few others still make 100% copper coax and it costs more of course unfortunately none is RG62a/u

The Mogami has very low capacitance and a great shield.
The Neutrik have superior strain reliefs and the ground makes contact before the center pin.
I connected the shield to the case on one end only (the source I think?).

Yeah, I was wondering how a cable like this is physically terminated.
I presume in this case, the shielding has to be terminated on both ends, whereas a 2-conductor cable, the return (not ground; dehr me) is the second conductor, and then the braid only terminated on the source side?

I don't know how noise/interference gets into a cable, so this has me wondering
1. How coax sounds when used as an analog IC constructed as above wrt noise rejection, and
2. How digital cables built from coax are constructed/terminated.

Good info up there on the build design/geometry, Ken. Neat to see what goes into selection of the wire, other uses, etc.

I am very proud of the 999 silver interconnects I made, Its a very simple design. Pure solid silver wire in a teflon tube. Cut it to size and solder on a mid priced RCA. I didn't have any true high end interconnects to compare it to but the improvement from my mid priced interconnect was noticed immediately first time I tried them. I also made a matching pair with mil spec silver coated hookup wire with teflon insulation. They also sounded good but I have mostly been using the pure silver ones.

I used this site as a guide. The only problem I had is I couldnt figure out how to secure the teflon tubes securely in the RCA body (they are slippery!). You don't want to pull these cables out by the wires. The pair I made look similar to these.

If you do have a shielded cable one end MUST be terminated. If not the shield can act as an antenna and pick up interference. With shielded speaker cables (not sure about interconnects) you only want to have the shield grounded to the source end. Supposedly bad thing happen if you terminate the shield at both ends. Ever wonder why you have directional speaker wires when the AC current just moves back and forth? This is why.

Unless you live next to a radio tower or are using extremely long runs I think shielded interconnects are over hyped. They add capacitance to the wire.

Yeah, I was wondering how a cable like this is physically terminated.
I presume in this case, the shielding has to be terminated on both ends, whereas a 2-conductor cable, the return (not ground; dehr me) is the second conductor, and then the braid only terminated on the source side?

I don't know how noise/interference gets into a cable, so this has me wondering
1. How coax sounds when used as an analog IC constructed as above wrt noise rejection, and
2. How digital cables built from coax are constructed/terminated.

Good info up there on the build design/geometry, Ken. Neat to see what goes into selection of the wire, other uses, etc.

FWIW -- I think that we've made our own lives more difficult in terms of keeping (analog) signals clean and quiet by the immense amounts of EMI and broad-band RFI "hash" that we've added to our environments with cell phones, WiFi, Bluetooth, etc., etc., etc.

One could always install a Faraday cage around the rack... IR remotes wouldn't be affected, but any data streams from an outside source would need wired in or have an external antenna (outside the cage) installed.

Yeah, I was wondering how a cable like this is physically terminated.
I presume in this case, the shielding has to be terminated on both ends, whereas a 2-conductor cable, the return (not ground; dehr me) is the second conductor, and then the braid only terminated on the source side?

I don't know how noise/interference gets into a cable, so this has me wondering
1. How coax sounds when used as an analog IC constructed as above wrt noise rejection, and
2. How digital cables built from coax are constructed/terminated.

Good info up there on the build design/geometry, Ken. Neat to see what goes into selection of the wire, other uses, etc.

Are you asking coax for unbalanced I/Cs? Center conductor is "hot" (center pin); braid (shield) is "return" (outer connector) is the usual way IMO/IME (ahem, it's what I do).

The Rane technical note I referenced (I think) in the first post is well worth reading -- even though it may make one's brain hurt if taken too fast. Mine did.

I did make it (mostly) thru your link and it did make my brain hurt a bit..........But it did answer my previous post. For shielded interconnects you want the ends of each shield to be connected to the chassis of each component (see pin 1). This makes a lot more sense than dumping all of the interference the shield picks up into the RCA neutral.

Eureka! All you have to do is connect a wire to each end of the shield and connect that to a screw on each components chassis. Instant balanced connection! I have no clue why interconnect manufacturers don't do this.

I did make it (mostly) thru your link and it did make my brain hurt a bit..........But it did answer my previous post. For shielded interconnects you want the ends of each shield to be connected to the chassis of each component (see pin 1). This makes a lot more sense than dumping all of the interference the shield picks up into the RCA neutral.

Eureka! All you have to do is connect a wire to each end of the shield and connect that to a screw on each components chassis. Instant balanced connection! I have no clue why interconnect manufacturers don't do this.

Maybe I was inspired too but I did a little more thinking about my previous post. If you ground both ends of a shielded RCA interconnect you will NOT get a balanced connection. The above schematic shows 2 op-amps in the pre (giving reverse phase signals) going to one op amp in the amplifier (that "decodes" / combines them).

Grounding both ends of the shielded RCA interconnect to each components chassis will still work though. But only for the signals picked up by the interconnect. It seems like something trivial to try and it has to be much better than grounding these signals into the audio path,